By Maduka Nweke
The President of the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS) Mr. Olayemi Shonubi has said that classification, presentation and benchmarking of construction costs in Nigeria will go a long way in redirecting the bogus budgets put forward in building construction in the country.
Speaking during a Press briefing to mark the annual Conference and General meeting of the Association earlier this week in Lagos, Shonubi said that consistent practice in presenting the performance of construction projects globally will bring significant benefits to managing the performance of construction projects.
Shonubi noted that the driving principle and aims of International Cost Management Standards (ICMS) since inception as succinctly stated in the introduction of the ICMS1 has been to provide global consistency in classifying, defining, measuring, recording, analysing, presenting and comparing entire life cycle costs and carbon emissions of construction projects and constructed assets at regional, state, national or international level.
He said that ICMS is a high-level classification system and that globalisation of construction business has only increased the need to make this meaningful comparative analysis between countries and international organisations such as the World Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund, various regional development banks, non-governmental organisations and the United Nations easy.
While fielding questions on who has more responsibilities between government and private sectors in the business of infrastructure cost management within the contemporary issues and emerging trends, the NIQS President noted that because both those in the private sectors and those in government circles are the make up of government, everybody is culpable.
Shonubi noted that the theme of the year’s Annual Conference is Infrastructure Cost
Management: Contemporary Issues and Emerging Trends. Two keynote speakers(Dr. Anil
Sawhney, a Construction and Infrastructure Sector Expert and Dr. (Arc) Mike Onolememen, a
former Minister of Works and Housing) will examine the theme from Global and National
perspectives. Other speakers, he said will discuss the global standards for Reporting and
Benchmarking Construction Costs (International Cost Management Standards), transparency
issues in Cost Management of Infrastructure, Cost Management of Public and Private
Partnership (PPP) Projects, the Concept and Tools for effective Cost Management of
Infrastructure, and Managing Carbon and other Life Cycle Costs of Construction Projects.